January 2024
A game jam is a challenge to start and finish a game centered around a particular theme in a short time frame. I've entered two game jams with some friends and successfully finished a game both times.
Our first game jam was in the middle of 2021. A friend and I had been talking about making games for a while, but we had never made one before and we kept getting bogged down by ideas and plans. Then a live streamer we both watch announced they were doing a game jam, and we saw that as a great opportunity for us to finally sit down and get something finished. So we published our first game to itch.io, "7 Layers of Livestreaming", which is a Foddian style 3D platformer based around livestreaming culture, which was the theme. We completed it in 10 days using Unreal Engine and included mechanics such as double jumping and wall running. My main focus on the project was programming using Unreal Engine's blueprints, which is a type of visual scripting, and asset modeling using Blender.
Here is a short video showcasing the game play:
Our second game jam was in January of 2024, the theme was "It's Spreading" and my friend came up with the idea of a character trying to spread light and color to an island that has been drained of it. We decided to use Unreal Engine again and added another friend to our team. This time I wanted to focus on creating the music while still doing some of the programming and asset modeling. We titled this one "Luminessence", which can also be found on itch.io.
Here's some gameplay footage:
Overall, I have found game jams to be great at pushing me to just do something, instead of constantly planning or getting bogged down by the details of what I want to accomplish. When I get stuck on other projects, I think about the game jams and how I was able to just keep pushing forward, one task at a time until it was finally complete.